/ 20 October 2007

Editor takes flak at media conference

Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya was accused of lying about his ”imminent arrest” by South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) group chief executive Dali Mpofu and writer Ronald Suresh Roberts at a conference in Sandton on Friday.

”Mondli Makhanya can lie and say there is [an] imminent arrest, when that is not the case,” said Mpofu.

He was speaking at a conference on media and society, hosted by the public broadcaster and the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) on Friday.

The remarks were made during a panel presentation on public interest versus individual privacy.

The discussion, which Rhodes university professor Guy Berger said was ”not just a happy academic debate”, arose from claims in the Sunday Times relating to the conduct of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang while in hospital, and an investigation into the disappearance of her medical records.

Last week the newspaper reported that Makhanya and colleague Jocelyn Maker would be arrested this week in relation to the file.

The National Prosecuting Authority issued a statement later saying that while an investigation was under way, they would not be arrested this week.

The SABC recently said it would break ties with Sanef over the reports.

”The press is a machine, it doesn’t have any freedom. Freedom belongs to the people, they have a right to make choices,” Mpofu said.

He said freedom of expression in the South African context should also be the right to express one’s culture. He said in his culture, he could not address a gathering such as the conference unless he had been circumcised.

”So from narrow Western eyes, [they] see it as a denial of freedom of expression.”

‘Cruise-missile journalism’

Roberts said the country was in the grip of what he called ”Baked Beans Part Two”, explaining that during the first democratic elections in 1994, some people had stockpiled tins of food with the expectation that there would be rioting.

Now, the fear was that a dictatorship was coming.

”This is madness. I doubt President Thabo Mbeki is a monster and that Mondli Makhanya is an angel.”

In a veiled reference to Makhanya, who was not present, he referred to journalists who used ”cruise-missile journalism” then run, or ”sit in their office and pontificate”, without attending Friday’s debate.

He said journalists were giving privacy rights short shrift.

”[There is a] problem with treating the body of the health minister as a place where journalists can go and trespass.”

The fact that the Sunday Times was not prevented from publishing the story meant that this government was more accommodating of freedom of expression.

”To publish that she was drunk in her bedroom … there is not one fact that she was drunk.”

”We have a Sunday Times journalist saying he was about to be arrested, but that was false.”

SABC group executive for news and current affairs Snuki Zikalala expressed concern over some editors, saying, ”I don’t think some of my colleagues are interested in building this nation.”

South Africa’s Bill of Rights enshrined freedom of expression, but those rights were not absolute and did not extend to propaganda or incitement to cause harm.

”People say the president is reversing the gains of democracy, but I think people are being paranoid.”

He said that when it was reported that Makhanya was about to be arrested, ”the cops said there was nothing like that”.

The way audiences were treated was ”really pathetic”, he said.

The information he had on the suspension of National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli was quite different to what other people had.

”We have got to go back to the drawing board.” – Sapa